Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 8:22 am Post subject: Year round work in the UK?

I know the pay rates are crap, but how is the UK, Oxford specifically, for full time year round work? I have an option to work there for the summer but don't think it would be worth it unless I was planning to stay there after.

It's pretty much zero hour contracts at all language schools when you start out. If you have a delta and/or a related masters, you might be able to get some decent full time work, but if you had those qualifications you could make much more elsewhere.

Everyone keeps saying that with higher qualifications, or experience why would you stay in UK? Well, the answer is that not everyone wants to go abroad either due to circumstances, or just not interested in working abroad.

No one's asked why the rates are so low for a UK-based TEFLer. I imagine the students are paying a hefty amount for classes, and whilst school based in London will have higher overheads, some of the classrooms I've seen there haven't seen any investment for decades. Outside of London, I doubt students' fees come down much, so why are the teachers paid so poorly? The answer must be that teachers will always work for those rates.

Other industries in the UK such as IT and engineering pay very average contractors anything from £35 to £50 an hour, and we're talking 40+ hours of paid work. I say again these contractors are nothing special. The companies would love to pay less, but the positions would remain empty. Teachers are their own worst enemy in accepting such low rates. This is one job which immigrants from the rest of the EU or beyond could not normally do, which makes the situation even harder to understand.

The solution requested by CANDLES above is to do another job. TEFLing in the UK is not viable.

In Ireland you can get an average of 16 euros an hour for 20 - 24 hours a week in an average language school. I know people who are living on that - they're far from rich, but they are ok. The trouble is, full time/20 + hours is hard to come by outside of the summer months. Is it possible to get full time work in the UK?

Teaching English in an English speaking country and getting paid for it decently is not feasible, unless one works in the State educational sector. Teaching on a 'voluntary' basis does not pay the bills. Not all ESL teachers are teachers by profession, but drifted into it by chance, so that is another hindrance. They cannot fall back on their previous careers, because, perhaps they left it a while back and things change. So 'catch 22' situation.

Doing something else - yes - you can, but have to be retrained for it or start fresh. Now how many people can do that or will do it, especially if age is a big factor to start anew. So teachers put up with the wretched pay and get on with it.